Two years ago the 50-acre site on Clarksville Road in West Windsor was a bustling construction site, as workers tackled a 80,000-square-foot, $28 million campus that would be home to the Jewish Community Center of Princeton Mercer Bucks and its many ancillary services.
A year ago the nearly completed project was stalled. Donations needed to complement the original financing were insufficient to complete the project. As the CEO of the JCC said at the time, the project needed “heroes” if it had any chance of completion.
But now the project is back on track with different uses and different tenants. Matt Wilson, the original lender to the Jewish Community Center, has assumed ownership of the entire campus, financed the remaining finishing touches on the facility, and turned one end of it into the Windsor Athletic Club, which he notes is the township’s only full-service health and fitness facility, complete with a 25-meter salt water (not chlorine) swimming pool (see details below).
The Jewish Community Center, meanwhile, has rented office space within the complex and will also run its popular Abrams summer day camp on the campus.
And, earlier this month, the facility was able to proclaim itself 100 percent occupancy with the signing of the Wilberforce School, a private Christian school that has been located at the Princeton Center for the Arts and Education (PCAE) on Mapleton Road in Plainsboro. Wilberforce, which now offers classes in pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, intends to utilize its expanded space to implement a high school program beginning in the fall of this year with grades 9 and 10.
If that’s a win, win, win for the large, multi-use campus, which includes a banquet room and a commercial-grade kitchen, it’s also a win for West Windsor Township. The space will now be subject to property taxes (as yet to be determined pending the next assessment). None of the proposed new uses requires any change in zoning.
The availability of the classroom wing of the facility was, according to a statement on the Wilberforce website (www.wilberforceschool.org), “an astonishing Providence of God. How many times does a brand new school-ready facility drop out of the sky, just in time, for a growing school?”
The deal ended nine months of uncertainty for officials of the nine-year-old Wilberforce School, who had figured it would need about 22,000 square feet of space to house an additional 100 high school students. As headmaster Howe Whitman told reporters when the deal was announced, “I came to work one day, and I had got an E-mail from this guy named Matt Wilson that there was a new school available. Wow. How many times does a school-ready building like this become available?”
According to information posted on the Wilberforce website, the high school curriculum will be offered in partnership with a South Bend, Indiana-based group called Trinity Schools. “We have worked with Trinity Schools and established a close partnership with them. Trinity has both licensed their curriculum to Wilberforce and agreed to provide guidance and training for our teachers and our leadership as we adapt their distinctive approach to our setting.”
Students of the Wilberforce School will have access to the basketball court and outdoor recreational fields, as well as the banquet facility for events such as dances and graduation.
The headmaster of Wilberforce, Howe Whitman Jr., is a 1992 graduate of Princeton who earned an MBA from Penn’s Wharton School. He served as executive assistant to Chuck Colson, the founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship Ministries, before beginning a career in real estate development and investment. He and his wife, Brenda, have four children, all students at Wilberforce.
The school is named after William Wilberforce, born in England in 1759, who became an abolitionist and philanthropist, who, according to the school’s website, “put evangelism on Britain’s map as a power for social change.”
The school’s move from Plainsboro will leave the non-profit Princeton Center for Arts and Education, housed in what had been for many years the St. Joseph’s Seminary, with two major tenants: The American Boychoir School, the cornerstone tenant that moved in just last fall, and the French American School of Princeton.
The Wilberforce School, 75 Mapleton Road, Plainsboro 08534. 609-924-6111. www.wilberforceschool.org.
#b#Fitness Features#/b#
The Windsor Athletic Club will showcase its facility at open houses this Saturday and Sunday, February 22 and 23, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Pre-opening discounted dues are $49 per month for individuals, $79 per month for couples, and $99 per month for families.
Matt Wilson notes that the center includes a fitness floor with cardio and strength equipment from Precor, Hoist, Star Trac and Octane; and exercise classes from aqua to spinning to pilates to yoga to zumba that are included with membership.
Also a gymnasium with two basketball courts and two volleyball courts; and three badminton courts and a ping pong facility with six ping pong tables for leagues and tournaments.
Babysitting and childcare are included free to all family members. Friday evening programming will include swim parties, basketball, movies, and ping pong. Children can be dropped off by parents.
In addition to men’s and women’s locker rooms, the center has five family changing rooms that offer families a private setting to change and shower their children.
Hiking and biking trails are planned for the 50-acre campus. The site’s private pond will offer daily outdoor yoga and exercise classes in warm weather.
Windsor Athletic Club, 99 Clarksville Road, West Windsor 08550. 609-356-5000. www.windsorathleticclub.com.
